Seahawks turn focus toward next season

Updated 10:52 pm, Monday, February 3, 2014

NEW YORK -- Less than 12 hours after winning the Super Bowl, Seattle head coach Pete Carroll already was talking about getting started on next season.

"The first meeting that we'll have will be tomorrow. ... Our guys would be surprised if we didn't," Carroll said Monday morning. "We really have an eye on what's coming, and we don't dwell on what just happened. We'll take this in stride."

Carroll oversees a team with the fourth-youngest roster for a Super Bowl champion, with an average age of 26 years, 175 days, according to STATS. The youngest champs ever were the Pittsburgh Steelers who won the 1975 Super Bowl, and they collected a second consecutive title the next year.

Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson just wrapped up his second season in the league, as did Jermaine Kearse, the receiver who caught one of the Wilson's two touchdown passes Sunday night. Doug Baldwin, who caught the other, is only three years into his pro career, as are cornerback Richard Sherman and Smith. At 24, Smith is the fourth-youngest player to be the Super Bowl MVP.

"We've seen the effort that it takes to get to this point, and, obviously, we'll try to replicate that and do it again," Smith said.

Head coach Pete Carroll hoists the Lombardi Trophy after the Super Bowl.

Head coach Pete Carroll hoists the Lombardi Trophy after the Super Bowl.

Photo: Matthew Emmons, Reuters

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Seattle head coach Pete Carroll holds the Vince Lombardi Trophy that his team earned with its 43-8 romp Sunday.

Seattle head coach Pete Carroll holds the Vince Lombardi Trophy that his team earned with its 43-8 romp Sunday.

Photo: Kevin C. Cox, Getty Images

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Quarterback Russell Wilson and head coach Pete Carroll made their point Sunday: With a 43-8 victory, Seattle showed it was the best team in football this season.

Quarterback Russell Wilson and head coach Pete Carroll made their point Sunday: With a 43-8 victory, Seattle showed it was the best team in football this season.

Photo: Paul Sancya, Associated Press

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Seahawks turn focus toward next season

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Carroll said general manager John Schneider has positioned the Seahawks to be able to avoid the problems that can make it hard to repeat as NFL champions. Since Denver repeated in the 1999 game, only one team has won two Super Bowls in a row, the New England Patriots in 2004-05.

There's the need to replace players who leave via free agency and the need to pay other players with better-paying contracts.

"John Schneider has done an extraordinary job of structuring this roster contractually, and with the vision of looking ahead, so that we can keep our guys together," Carroll said. "One of the things that happens every so often is teams have a big fallout after they win the Super Bowl. We're not in that situation."

Carroll was reminded during Sunday's game of some of his blowout victories in college bowl games when he was a championship-winning head coach at USC.

"It felt like it. It looked like it. The score was like it," he said Monday.

"I really can't tell you exactly what it is, but something's going on, because I sat back there at the end of the first quarter and said, 'Shoot, here it goes,' " he said. "Bang, bang, bang, bang, and it's 22-0 at halftime."

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